Santa Cruz Next is on a roll. But can it lure in enough young people to become more prominent in local civic life?

On a warm Tuesday night in Santa Cruz, as the season turns to autumn, dozens of Santa Cruzans are gathered at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center to watch Barack Obama and John McCain bicker with each other and interrupt moderator Tom Brokaw in the second televised presidential debate.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lanford Wilson ignites the UCSC summer stage with ‘Burn This’.  Plus: We raise the curtain and look inside Shakespeare Santa Cruz’s boldest season yet.

Sometimes, it’s the story behind the story that’s just as interesting as the story—maybe even more.

It’s hard not to think that that is the case after walking away from a conversation with Lanford Wilson. The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright is in the spotlight locally this summer, thanks to Shakespeare Santa Cruz. Wilson’s soul-stirring play, “Burn This,” is one of the two contemporary works unfolding in this year’s festival—the other is “Bach at Leipzig” by Itamar Moses. Presented in repertory with William Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet” and “All’s Well That Ends Well,” “Burn This” not only offers audiences an opportunity to connect with a brilliant work, but also to the living playwright responsible for creating it.

One man’s cyber trip into the land of Facebook spawns a slew of existential questions

I HATE YOU, FACEBOOK. I CAN’T QUIT— a female student who e-mailed Facebook

I think that understanding that there might not be any difference between what people are doing online and offline is something really important— Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook

In the past few months I seem to have either lost or gained a digital identity. Like puberty and its ensuing formative years, I now find myself wondering who I am—digitally, and, of course, punctuated by a tad bit of confusion about being-ness. The question of “who am I?” is not so easily explained on a couch, or even the well-touted History of Consciousness program at UC Santa Cruz, much less helped along by what has been variously called Social Networking Websites.

Chip & Jeff Dinnell/SoWat TV

Who needs SNL when we have two local guys with a serious manbrows poking fun at Santa Cruz politics—and more—under the guise of hosting a show about the arts in Santa Cruz County? When it first debuted on Community Television back in 2004, the bi-monthly talk show—and, really some would just call it, plain ol’ bi—known as “SoWat” spotlighted locals making a difference in the arts community. It still does that, but in the course of three years, the popular show has added a number of curious elements. It’s now morphed into a modern day “Late Night with David Letterman” by way of a more youthful—or is it euphemized?—“John Stewart.” Hosts Jeff Dinnell (a local actor with delicious wit) and Chip (an über supporter of local arts) work off each other with such a graceful splash of inventiveness, you can’t but be taken in by their

Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens head to the altar for the fourth time in one unforgettable—and eco-tinged—performance art wedding

It’s not your typical breakfast condiment but I take in the verbal seasoning, use my fork to break open the egg yoke on my plate and silently recite the Sprinkle-ism back to myself, each time placing emphases on a different word: Love is the new sex. Love is the new sex. Love is the new sex.

Love is the new … sex.

Santa Cruzan Robin Janiszeufski Hesson of the documentary Surfin’ Thru, leads the way in our annual film issue, in which we salute the season’s most memorable celluloid players.

Editor's note: GT's annual film issue is loaded with plenty of cinematic fodder to keep you busy for quite some time. Here, we spotlight some of the locals that have been making a difference in the film world at home, beginning with ... Robin Janiszeufski Hesson, The Rising Star. (Read more film stories here.)

We don’t come into the world with a movie script that tells us what we’re supposed to do or how we’re supposed to act. But, the more conscious we become, the deeper we look within ourselves for answers, we do realize we have the extreme pleasure of casting anybody we want to be the main star in the moving picture known as our life. We can take on the lead role, but sometimes, try as we might, our “co-stars” still want to steal the show.

There’s a howling wind outside but I have to take out the garbage. I grab three bags, two overflowing with recyclables, and the third full of trash. The icy, sharp rain stings as I trudge through puddles to the garbage and recycling bins at the end of my long driveway. By the time I get there, I’m already soaked, the result of one of those winter storms. I’m so eager to get back to my cozy fire indoors and shed the wet layers of clothing that I do the unthinkable. I fling open the trash can lid and throw everything inside. The lid slams shut and I rush back to the house. Then a twinge of guilt sets in. But what difference does it make if I don’t take a minute to separate the recyclables into their respective bins? I’m only one person. I can’t possibly make a difference, right? Well …

For centuries, only men have been allowed to wear the big spiritual pants in the Catholic family. Not any more. Victoria Rue and a growing number of other ordained Roman Catholic womenpriests and bishops are suddenly paving the way for a bold new priestly ministry. And the Vatican isn’t amused.

Victoria Rue remembers the moment it hit her. She was kneeling down on the deck of a boat sailing Canada’s St. Lawrence Seaway in the summer of 2005 when she felt as if every cell in her body was being rearranged. As three Roman Catholic bishops laid their hands over her and several other women, the moment she had long been waiting for was about to become more than just spiritual fodder for the history books.

Four women, including Rue, were ordained as priests that day. Performing the ordinations were three Roman Catholic female bishops.

There’s nothing like a post-modern Punk’d-ish estrogen parade to liven up summer.

Learn why the locals behind TV’s ‘Rad Girls’ are about to make the season sizzle.

First came John Waters, the King of Shock. Chicken love, eating dog crap—jaws dropped in 1972 after the release of the director’s Pink Flamingoes. Then came Madonna with her in-your-face sexual frolicking and irreverent punches at authority and religion. Next? Howard Stern. His pitchfork-like tongue pierced the airwaves. By the time MTV’s Johnny Knoxville hit the air with Jackass, it was hard to imagine anything surpassing the prankster’s outlandish humor.

Man of the 'hour,' local marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols, delivers a sobering message about the state of the world’s oceans: ‘Really, no kidding—this is our 11th hour’

The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) recently released its Red List. Using the mental manna from a group of global authorities, the renowned list assesses the risk of extinction on various forms of ocean life.

Polar bears are listed as “threatened.” It’s not necessarily “good” news, but it does sit somewhere north of “endangered.” That’s the spot reserved for the right whale, the black-footed albatross, the blue whale and, something that will turn heads locally, sea otters.

But the future looks far more daunting for other forms of life, such as the pacific leatherback turtle, the vaquita marina (a harbor porpoise in the Gulf), the southern bluefin tuna, the angel shark, black grouper and black abalone. They are all considered “critically endangered.”

You’re closer to her than you think. Meet the local treasure who you’re already connected to.

Santa Cruz Mayor Emily Reilly leans in close, as if she’s going to tell me a secret. And she does. It’s a secret to living a long life; living a happy life; a healthy life. It’s one of the secrets that makes Reilly such a favorable politician.